Apply to attend Startup School East by April 12</strong></a><strong>.</strong></p><p>We’ll be chartering buses to travel to and from schools around the Northeast. Sign up early if you’d like a seat on one of the buses.</p>","comment_id":"66047a2aeba13d0001fb3002","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2024/03/Startup-School-East.jpg","featured":true,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2024-03-27T12:57:30.000-07:00","updated_at":"2024-06-03T11:12:10.000-07:00","published_at":"2024-03-27T13:23:47.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":"Join us for Startup School East on April 20.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7117f","name":"Startup School","slug":"startup-school","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/startup-school/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71180","name":"#startup-school","slug":"hash-startup-school","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"internal","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/404/"}],"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a7106f","name":"Y Combinator","slug":"yc","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/yc.png","cover_image":null,"bio":null,"website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/yc/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a7106f","name":"Y Combinator","slug":"yc","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/02/yc.png","cover_image":null,"bio":null,"website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/yc/"},"primary_tag":{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7117f","name":"Startup School","slug":"startup-school","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/startup-school/"},"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/startup-school-east-boston/","excerpt":"Join us for Startup School East on April 20.","reading_time":1,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":null},"mentions":[],"related_posts":[{"id":"61fe29f1c7139e0001a71bb4","uuid":"37e72533-683c-4424-a52c-2675cc66e0f2","title":"Announcing YC Build Sprint and 20 Equity-Free Grants","slug":"announcing-yc-build-sprint-and-20-equity-free-grants","html":"<!--kg-card-begin: html--><p>We’re excited to announce our first-ever YC Build Sprint. This is a 4-week period to work intensively towards a defined goal alongside a community of thousands of other founders. The sprint will kick off on August 24 and be administered through our free Startup School platform. Also, we’ll be awarding 20 grants of $10,000 to winners selected from among the sprint participants! <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.startupschool.org/dashboard/">Sign up</a> for Startup School and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.startupschool.org/sprint/register/">register for the sprint</a> now.</p>\n<p><strong>How does the sprint work?</strong></p>\n<p>YC founders often discover that they’re especially productive in the weeks leading up to YC’s Demo Day. The external time pressure brings focus and increases motivation. With our Build Sprint, we hope to bring some of that focus and productivity to tens of thousands of founders in the wider community.</p>\n<p>When you sign up for the Build Sprint, you’ll be asked to write down a goal you’d like your startup to hit by September 20th. This goal should be specific, measurable, and hard but not impossible. Good goals would be “launch product and get first 3 customers” or “grow MRR to $1,000.” Bad goals would be “get to know my users better” (not measurable) or “send 20 emails to prospective customers” (too easy).</p>\n<p>Each week, when you submit your company update, we’ll ask you to report whether you’re on track to hit your goal. Your answer will appear prominently on your Startup School dashboard as extra motivation!</p>\n<p>Part of the magic of YC’s core batch program also comes from a set of peers who are supportive, but also competitive, which has the effect of motivating you to work even harder. To replicate this in the YC Build Sprint, we’ll require participants to attend video group sessions for 3 out of the 4 weeks, and prioritize matching founders with the same peers each week so that you can report progress on your specific goals to each other.</p>\n<p>The sprint ends September 20th, at which time you’ll be asked to report on whether your startup achieved the goal. We hope that by the end of the 4 weeks, you’ll have achieved more than you expected!</p>\n<p><strong>Bringing back Startup School Grants</strong></p>\n<p>Additionally, we’ve decided to continue our popular Startup School equity-free grant program in connection with this YC Build Sprint and provide 20 $10,000 grants to startups selected as winners from the Sprint participants. To be eligible for the grant, you need to complete all sprint requirements and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/apply/">submit an application</a> for YC’s W2021 batch by September 23<sup id=\"footnoteid1\"><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"#footnote1\">1</a></sup>. You do not need to have achieved your sprint goal. (Please find the full official rules and selection criteria for the grant <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YSvivbXQGTH8bHLTfIwjzNwkUGcwZfuXZJrsL2EFF2k/edit/">here (YC S21) is one of these companies. Vrinda Gupta had left her job after launching credit cards like the Chase Sapphire Reserve at Visa to work on a product to help women build credit. She spent a year working as a solo founder, and, in that time, raised a pre-seed and built an MVP. She knew she needed a technical co-founder who was mission driven, had fintech expertise, and was in it for the long haul.</p><figure class=\"kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption\"><img src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://blog.ycombinator.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Sequin.jpeg/" class=\"kg-image\" alt loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption>Sequin (YC S21) co-founders, Vrinda Gupta and Mark Thomas.</figcaption></figure><p>That person was Mark Thomas. He had ten years of engineering experience at Paypal, cared deeply about gender equity, and spent six years as CTO of family-oriented startups. They had an instant connection and arranged to meet in person soon after. Vrinda recalls, “We met the day after we matched, and the day after, and then the day after that.”</p><p>Together, they went through YC’s batch this summer and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.forbes.com/sites/geristengel/2021/09/15/debit-card-startup-builds-credit-for-women/?sh=6283b60b3c67\%22>raised $5.7M</a>.</p><p><strong><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.kiwibiosciences.com//">Kiwi Biosciences</a></strong></strong> (YC S21) has a similar story. Anjie Liu started the company to solve her own pains with irritable bowel syndrome. She had a founding scientist to tackle R&D, but wanted a co-founder to help her build a consumer brand and commercialize the product.</p><figure class=\"kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption\"><img src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://blog.ycombinator.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/kiwi.jpeg/" class=\"kg-image\" alt loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption>Anjie Liu and David Hachuel, co-founders of Kiwi Biosciences (YC S21).</figcaption></figure><p>When Anjie saw David Hachuel’s profile on YC co-founder matching, she knew that he was “exactly what [she] was looking for.” David had previously sold a startup in the same space, and was immediately interested in her idea.</p><p>They took a very structured approach to co-founder matching. Both founders answered all 50 questions posed in <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://proof-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/firstround/50 Questions for Co-Founders.pdf/">First Round’s co-founder questionnaire</a>. They found deep alignment on “all the important things” (conflict resolution, vision for culture, etc.). When their month-long trial ended and it came time to say go or no-go, the decision was easy.</p><p>Anjie and David worked remotely for four months and finally met in person after getting into YC. They went through YC and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/14/kiwi-bio-aims-to-free-irritable-bowel-syndrome-sufferers-from-restrictive-diets//">raised $1.5M</a>.</p><p>We’re ecstatic about the companies who met through our co-founder matching and we’re excited to see the platform continue to grow and support more awesome founders in the future!</p><p>Looking for a co-founder? Check out the platform at <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://blog.ycombinator.com/does-co-founder-matching-work/www.ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching/">www.ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching.","comment_id":"61a505fbcf1ec1000121a57c","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2021/12/BlogTwitter-Image-Template--11-.png","featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2021-11-29T08:55:23.000-08:00","updated_at":"2024-10-23T02:26:59.000-07:00","published_at":"2021-11-24T08:55:00.000-08:00","custom_excerpt":"Read about how the founders of Seer, Sequin, and Kiwi Biosciences used YC’s co-founder matching platform to complete their founding team.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71081","name":"Catheryn Li","slug":"catheryn","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/10/catheryn.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Catheryn (Cat) is a Product Engineer at YC focused on Startup School. Before that she was an engineer at Instagram and Facebook. Cat has a B.S. in Computer Science and Math from MIT.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/catheryn/"}],"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71152","name":"Founder Stories","slug":"founder-stories","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/founder-stories/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71180","name":"#startup-school","slug":"hash-startup-school","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"internal","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/404/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7117f","name":"Startup School","slug":"startup-school","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/startup-school/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71173","name":"YC News","slug":"yc-news","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/yc-news/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a711a7","name":"#23139","slug":"hash-23139","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"internal","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/404/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a711a8","name":"#24381","slug":"hash-24381","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"internal","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/404/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a711a9","name":"#24628","slug":"hash-24628","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"internal","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/404/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71081","name":"Catheryn Li","slug":"catheryn","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/10/catheryn.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Catheryn (Cat) is a Product Engineer at YC focused on Startup School. Before that she was an engineer at Instagram and Facebook. Cat has a B.S. in Computer Science and Math from MIT.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/catheryn/"},"primary_tag":{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71152","name":"Founder Stories","slug":"founder-stories","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/founder-stories/"},"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/does-co-founder-matching-work/","excerpt":"We launched the co-founder matching platform earlier this year to help founders find their co-founders. When you sign up, you tell us about yourself and what you’re looking for, and we show you profiles that most closely match your ideal co-founder. If you message a candidate and they accept, we match the two of you.","reading_time":2,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"61fe29f1c7139e0001a71b56","uuid":"e6916c5e-a5fb-463b-99b0-1bd75c3fd8b3","title":"Startup School Podcast Preview with Kevin Hale","slug":"startup-school-podcast-preview-with-kevin-hale","html":"<!--kg-card-begin: html--><p>Today’s episode is a preview of the <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/startup-school-by-y-combinator/id1436083034/">Startup School podcast</a>.</p>\n<p>We’re putting all the Startup School lectures on their own podcast feed. You can subscribe here:<br />\n<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/startup-school-by-y-combinator/id1436083034/">iTunes
RSS/n
This is the first lecture from Startup School 2019. It’s <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://twitter.com/ilikevests/">Kevin Hale</a> on How to Evaluate Startup Ideas.</p>\n<p>It’s also not too late to sign up for <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.startupschool.org/">Startup School</a>.</p>\n<p>The course just started and the deadline to sign up is August 4th. Select companies who complete the course will also receive 15,000 dollars in equity-free funding.</p>\n<hr />\n<h1>Topics</h1>\n<p><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://youtu.be/DOtCl5PU8F0?t=0s\%22>00:00 – Why we’re starting with evaluating ideas</p>\n<p><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://youtu.be/DOtCl5PU8F0?t=1m25s\%22>1:25 – YC doesn’t just fund companies with traction</p>\n<p><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://youtu.be/DOtCl5PU8F0?t=2m50s\%22>2:50 – How can I predict if an investor will like my idea?</p>\n<p><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://youtu.be/DOtCl5PU8F0?t=5m15s\%22>5:15 – A startup idea is a hypothesis</p>\n<p><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://youtu.be/DOtCl5PU8F0?t=6m55s\%22>6:55 – The problem</p>\n<p><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://youtu.be/DOtCl5PU8F0?t=10m55s\%22>10:55 – The solution</p>\n<p><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://youtu.be/DOtCl5PU8F0?t=12m35s\%22>12:35 – The insight</p>\n<p><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://youtu.be/DOtCl5PU8F0?t=14m\%22>14:00 – Founder’s unfair advantage</p>\n<p><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://youtu.be/DOtCl5PU8F0?t=15m\%22>15:00 – Market growing 20% a year</p>\n<p><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://youtu.be/DOtCl5PU8F0?t=15m40s\%22>15:40 – Product 10x better</p>\n<p><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://youtu.be/DOtCl5PU8F0?t=16m30s\%22>16:30 – Acquisition model</p>\n<p><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://youtu.be/DOtCl5PU8F0?t=17m55s\%22>17:55 – Monopoly</p>\n<p><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://youtu.be/DOtCl5PU8F0?t=18m50s\%22>18:50 – Threshold belief</p>\n<p><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://youtu.be/DOtCl5PU8F0?t=19m10s\%22>19:10 – Miracle belief</p>\n<p><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://youtu.be/DOtCl5PU8F0?t=20m10s\%22>20:10 – Example: YC</p>\n<p><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://youtu.be/DOtCl5PU8F0?t=23m20s\%22>23:20 – Example: Wufoo</p>\n<hr />\n<div id=\"backtracks-player\" data-bt-embed=\"https://player.backtracks.fm/ycombinator/ycombinator/m/137-startup-school-podcast-preview-with-kevin-hale\" data-bt-theme=\"orange\" data-bt-show-art-cover=\"true\" data-bt-show-comments=\"true\">\n</div>\n<p><script>(function(p,l,a,y,e,r,s){if(p[y]) return;if(p[e]) return p[e]();s=l.createElement(a);l.head.appendChild((s.async=p[y]=true,s.src=r,s))}(window,document,\"script\",\"__btL\",\"__btR\",\"https://player.backtracks.fm/embedder.js\"))</script> <script><br />\n(function(p,l,a,y,e,r,s){if(p[y]) return;<br />\nif(p[e]) return p[e]();s=l.createElement(a);<br />\nl.head.appendChild((s.async=p[y]=true,s.src=r,s))<br />\n}(window,document,'script','__btL','__btR',<br />\n'https://player.backtracks.fm/embedder.js'))<br />\n</script> <script><br />\n!function(n,i,s,c){n[s]||(n[s]=function(i){n[s].q.push(i)}),n[s].q||(n[s].q=[]),<br />\nc=i.createElement(\"script\"),<br />\nc.async=1,<br />\nc.src=\"https://c.bktrks.com/utils-1.0.0.all.min.js\",<br />\ni.head.appendChild(c)}(window,document,\"BTUtils\");<br />\nBTUtils(function(use) {<br />\n var options = {<br />\n autoplayLinks: false<br />\n };<br />\n use('backtracks-autolink', options).init();<br />\n});<br />\n</script></p>\n<hr />\n<h1>Subscribe</h1>\n<p><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/y-combinator/id1236907421/">iTunes
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Google Play</a><br />\n<a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://open.spotify.com/show/1tgqafxZAB0Bjd8nkwVtE4?si=Zha2qqbMTcqZxl5lieNi2w\%22>Spotify
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/n
/n by
Eric Migicovsky